The Burghley House to Stamford walk (and back) in pictures

By Tony Attwood

The pre-Christmas walk from Burghley House.

According to their website Burghley House is “still very much a lived-in family home,” and very grand and wonderful it looks too.

And not for the first time, as I strolled in its superb stately home grounds, I wondered what on earth it must be like to live in such a place.

I mean, do they just use one tiny bit of the place or are there multiple groups of people living here there and everywhere in it?

Do they have servants running thither and yon (which is what I have been told servants do, but I’ve never lived in a place with servants, so I don’t know.    Indeed, I remember my aunt telling me as a child to put things away after I had finished playing with them because “they didn’t have servants.”   I am not sure it had the right impact on me because I think I found myself wondering if they did next door.

But of course, there is no next door in a house like this so one is left pondering.  I know that in childhood, as I got to know a little more about the aristocrats who seemed to have ruled the country in ancient times, one couldn’t become one of the elite unless one had a double-barreled name, so I did spend quite a bit of time pondering what name I might have.

For reasons I can’t properly recall the double barrelled name Fetherstone-Haugh came to mind but I remembered looking that up and seeing that it wasn’t double barrelled at all and was actually pronounced Franshaw, which seemed to make all the malarky of changing my name a bit of a waste of time.

So inh the end I let the matter drop.  But in the picture you can see the weather taking a tumble for the worst.

And so it seemed to me, not for the first time, that even with enough dosh to be able to live in such a place you couldn’t do much about things.

But I did wonder if in fact the entire family had not mutated over the centuries in which they had had the absolute lordship of their domain, and rather got a bit fed up with all the “Yes My Lord” and “No my Lady” malarky that goes with owning a vast estate.

I mean these fellows in the fields under the trees seemed to be having a jolly jape and no mistake – they didn’t want to take any notice of us and we meandered on our Ramble, and onje or two of us snapped away.

Indeed wouldn’t it be curious if the enire atistocratic classes had turned into creatires that we now think of a roaming the land looking rather jolly, and maybe the original creatures who live on the estate are njow in the buildings telling the servants what to do and giving the doremouse what fo.

And this I suppose is the essence of artistocratic life – having bonkers and bizarre thoughts about the transmutation of peoople into animals and vice versa.

But no, we move on along our merry way, and after a while I got a bit fed up with takiing photographs trees and deer so I waited until we got into Stamford – the turning point of our journey.

Now I am not a resident of this fine town with its most engaging bridges, but I do go there regularly, and indeed do go to this building which is the Stamfrord Arts Centre.   In fact most monday nights (when not injured) I can be found therein having fun with LovetoDance – a modern jive club (which is very welcoming to beginners).

And I mention this not just because of the Stamford connection, but because but cater for those of us of a certain age who like to stay physically fit rather than spend time watching TV, in the pub, or nattering with the neighbours.

My neighbours are in fact awfully nice and very chattersome but it does no harm to get out and about sometimes and learn a skill or three.

But it was time to venture forwards once more beyond the town back into the green lawns and leaf-less trees, and to be reminded what a lovely place Stamforrd is and just how incredibly expensive the houses are.   I did actually live in the town for five months while waiting to buy a house .to the west, but that is another tale.

And so we walked back and eventually find that contrary to popular expectations our cars were all still there and we had plenty of time to say our farewells, wish each other a merry whatnot, and soforth.

And it was I felt rather indicative of the afternoon that no one wanted to rush back to the hurly burly and whatnot, but we did pause to wish each other all sorts of things in the coming days and promises to meet again.

We left the deer a-scampering and it struck me that for them one day was very much like the next, and how that is how it must also seem for the charming lady who runs my local post office.

Except that she sells an awful lot more stamps at this time of year, largely to people whom she hasn’t seen all year but who now suddenly tunr up again and wish her a meerry christmas and then say “How much???” when she tells them the cost of the stamps.

And it struck me not for the first time that the deer in the parkland don’t actually have stamps, and don’t know it is Christmas, and don’t even have much sense of what it all means.

Except that such thoughts led me to think that quite probably nor do I either, and so I guess that puts me more on a level with the deer in the park than I am with the artisocrats who inhabit the big house.   Not that I am critical of them – it is just that walks do this to me.  I get thinking and things of that nature.